Dark Horses: The Magazine of Weird Fiction

IN THE FORESTS OF THE NIGHT Wayne Kyle Spitzer –––––––– * * * * It would be heedless to say that what I saw in front of me as the moths fluttered about the dock light and the moon shone blue through the trees was the most amazing thing I’d ever seen; of course it was. How else should I describe the nude, spare figure bowed dutifully in the moonlight (i.e., with her forehead touched to the wooden dock, like a monk) or the lean behemoth across the pond from her that watched the dark waters like a hawk before stabbing its snout in and coming up with a tuna—or something like it—at which the figure rose and splayed its hands even as the great beast swung its head away and was gone. “You’re playing with fire,” I said—I guess I couldn’t help it—even as she whipped around and glared at me. “But then you already knew that, didn’t you?” And we stared at each other: me and the nude, spare girl at the end of the dock, in the fog, in the night. There behind the Frank Lloyd Wright-styled house with its jade-green solar panels and the impossible light seeping from its windows (a house that wasn’t mine—and probably wasn’t hers). There in an overcast, wooded area of Marin County, California, near Lagunitas-Forest Knolls, after the Apocalypse. Until she stepped forward and snatched a robe from the back of a chair and shook the hair from her eyes, and snapped, “Did you get a good look?” I guess I must have recoiled. “No. Yes; I mean—I saw lights on and thought maybe there was help here; like, government help.” I looked back at the house and the resplendent back yard: the covered pool, the greenhouse full of plants. “A rescue station—like the kind they’d started setting up during the Flashback. But now ...” I trailed off, thinking of all the dead zones I’d visited, the haunted buildings, the empty places. “I’m just lost. Lost and hungry.” I added: “I’m David, by the way. David Hodge Lambert.” She cinched the robe briskly, aggressively. “David,” she repeated. “David Hodge Lambert.” She laughed without discernible humor. “So tell me, David. Do you make a habit of watching women in their most private moments—or am I the exception?” “Look. It’s just—” I peered beyond her at the small lake, to where the gaunt creature had been standing only a moment before. “I’ve never seen such a thing, that’s all. It’s like—it’s like you were praying to it. Worshipping.” She started walking toward me, toward the Frank Lloyd Wright-styled house. “You say that like it’s a bad thing.” “It’s not a wise thing, that’s for sure.” I gave her a wide birth as she passed completely by me and entered the house. “I mean, you saw its ribs. That animal is starv—” “Allosauruses don’t swim, normally,” she called. “Yeah? Well.” I heard something splash and refocused on the water. “I don’t normally watch women in their private moments, either. Regardless: showing yourself to it like that is—” I started to turn, “It’s like putting up a giant billboard that says ‘Free—’” She looked at me over the pistol and arched an eyebrow. “... buffet.” I raised my hands slowly. “Now look. I don’t want any—” “I’ll give you food and water—enough to last several days, even a week, if you’re lucky, and then you go. Am I clear?” I moved to speak but paused: She was too focused, too single-minded. Too hair-trigger. Saying the wrong thing simply wouldn’t do. “Sure,” I said, although only after some length—lightly, breezily, and took a step back. “That’d be great. I mean—if it wouldn’t put you out.” She scowled and c****d the pistol. “Don’t even—” I shook my head briskly. Not even. I’m not even. And then she just relaxed—suddenly, inexplicably—lowering the hammer like a pro, like Marshal f*****g Dillon, letting her arm drop to her side. “You’re not exactly ‘Danger Man,’ are you?” she said. “No, ma’am. No, I’m not.” “More like John-Boy Walton. Or Richie Cunningham.” She soured suddenly. “What good are you, then?” She disappeared into the house. “I’ll put something together—something high in protein; that you don’t have to cook. Well, don’t just stand there. Come in.” She added: “I’m Naomi.” I stepped into the home but paused immediately: taken aback by all the canvases and easels—the drop cloths and oozing paints, the tables covered with palettes and sketchbooks and small wooden manikins. “You’ve been busy during the apocalypse.” She called from the kitchen: “Do you like them?” I paced next to a wall covered in portraits. “I confess that I do. Your use of color is striking. And your subject matter,” I scanned the oversized works—the politicians and dictators, the bikers and rockstars; the powerful, majestic animals poised on tree branches and cliffs. “It’s incredibly consistent. They’re all of a piece.” I stopped in front of one that was exceptional for its lack of color. “Except this one. The one with the muted blues and grays. ‘In the Forests of the Night.’” I looked up to find her busying herself in the kitchen. “William Blake?” “Elisa Lam,” she said, and joined me—or at least came to within about 10 feet of me, the g*n still in her hand. “Are you familiar with it? The case, I mean.” “Sure, I guess,” I said, having read about it before the Flashback. “She was the girl found in the water tank, at the Cecil Hotel. The one in the viral video—where she’s behaving oddly outside the elevator, contorting her hands.” “The Cecil Hotel, that’s right,” said Naomi. “Just motioning and gesticulating—as if someone were in the hallway with her, although we never see anything. And then, weeks later—” “They fish her out of the tank.” “On the roof,” said Naomi. “It’s just such a weird story; so tragic, so surreal. And I guess when they ruled it an ‘accidental drowning’ stemming from a manic episode—she hid in the tank because she thought she was being followed and then couldn’t climb out—I got inspired. And this was the result. Such as it is.” We looked at the oversized canvas and the muted blues and grays; at the moonlight filtering through the water and the girl’s hovering, ink-black hair. “Personally, I think it’s one of your best,” I said. “The others are all looking out, looking up, at gods and demi-gods. But this one—this one looks in; in and down, curiously. At the drowned girl—who’s isolated and alone. Into the darkness; which seems almost to be beckoning her. It really is my favorite.” She laughed aloud at all that. “And here I wasn’t even going to finish it! Ha. And ha, again. But, no. No. It’s missing that one special element; that special something that all the others have. A thing that, without it, it can’t really be mine.” She glanced at me alluringly, almost seductively. “And do you know what that is?” I looked at the other paintings. “Fire engine red,” I said. “Primal instinct,” she said, ignoring me, and indicated the biker. “Take David here—yes, that’s why I laughed when you told me your name. David was my sometimes lover before—and for a brief time after, the Flashback.” She tilted her head and studied him—appreciatively, coldly. “What do you see in his eyes?” I suppose I must have squinted. “Dead children.” “Seriously—what do you see there in between the darks and the lights?” I examined the painting carefully, fastidiously. “A shadow,” I said—although only after some length. “Like a dark cloud, or a kind of stain, only—” I hesitated. “No. No, that’s not it. More of a ... an undertow.” “‘A demonic sublime,’ as Yvonne Jacquette put it,” she said; and looked at me. “Something lurid, carnivalesque, frenetic—almost noirish. Something primal and unrestrained. He had it.” She laughed, suddenly. “Until he didn’t. But then, we all do; to a greater or lesser degree.” Her greenish-brown eyes flicked up and down my face (for she’d moved closer; a lot closer). “Even you.” My brow must have furrowed even as I smiled. “I’m not sure how to take that.” “I’m not sure how I meant it.” Now it was my turn to do the sizing up. “Precisely none of which explains why you were bowing to a predatory dinosaur in the middle of the night in the heart of California wine country while quite possibly squatting in someone else’s home—considering there’s a Harley out back with two helmets on the seat, and Michigan plates.” “Mysteries within mysteries,” she said, but didn’t elaborate. “Mysteries I can live with,” I responded, flatly. “Food and water, on the other hand ...” I indicated the kitchen. And then we just stared at each other—we who were possibly the last two people on earth—there in the Frank Lloyd Wright-styled house with its jade-green solar panels and impossible, welcoming light. There in an overcast, wooded area of Marin County, California, near Lagunitas-Forest Knolls, after the time-storm, after the Flashback. After the anomaly that had vanished probably three-quarters of the human population and reverted the world to primordia. ––––––––